


Better Than Yourself

by elena_stidham



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Boys Being Boys, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Song Lyrics, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22065637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elena_stidham/pseuds/elena_stidham
Summary: "I hope you know you're not alone in that hell. And there ain't, no, no one can change it, no one can do it better than yourself."--Lukas Graham
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Shorter Wong
Comments: 9
Kudos: 65





	Better Than Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Language, very mildly explicit sex, a suicide attempt, marijuana use, violence and near-death, PTSD
> 
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: “Better Than Yourself” by Lukas Graham and my Recovery playlist
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/twijill/playlist/08UcNbQJ83tKPdZnp57XY6?si=KHSX8wvLRMyJK3w6n9O9wQ
> 
> I have returned from the depths of hiatus hell to bring to you some of that good angst and some good news…I wrote a zine!! It’s an AshEiji Recovery zine and I'm so close to being done with it. When it's done (all I have left is some art and formatting), you can find it on my Twitter!! I am so so excited and happy about this project and I can’t wait to share it with everybody. Thank you so much for reading my work and supporting me, and I’m excited to dive back into my regularly scheduled angst ideas. 
> 
> In other news there’s a few fics I wanna get back into writing, like Shattered Courage, After, as well as a couple Yuri on Ice fics I had in mind for a minute. We’ll see what order things go in, but I really wanna dive right back into them. For now, please enjoy this fic and I’m excited to write more!
> 
> My twitter and tumblr is elenastidham. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> -Elena

_I got the letter back, saying I can come and see you. I really don't have time, but promised that I'd come and see you._

Shorter had only ever seen Ash’s apartment once. He never went back since. The place wasn’t awful, just uncomfortable. It was clear that it was hardly lived in, a run-down, ghost of a memory living within a concrete space.

He doesn’t even remember what he was there for, but it was brief. He had asked Shorter to stay outside in kitchen while he slipped into a small room right beside the bed. He heard murmuring in there. It sounded desperate, as if Ash was on the brink of some grand discovery, but instead left defeated.

Shorter never knew about Griffin until after he died, so after this knowledge was obtained, it made the visit even more haunting than it already was. He had never seen Ash so hollow. So worried. So scared.

Before he had walked out of the apartment on that day, he had noticed a notepad with a list written in blue pen. A checklist, of sorts. Things to do.

Yet there was only one entry. It was a simple, yet desperate cry for help besides a box scribbled carefully across the faded line.

_“Endure and survive just to stay alive.”_

_You're sitting far away, but do you know I sometimes need you? I know that you deserve the time you got of all the people._

Shorter has heard more than enough about the horrors in Ash’s working life. He’s heard of every single thing that’s supposed to be pure and sincere – stolen away from him until there’s nothing left at all.

And Shorter sympathises with him for that. He doesn’t outright express his pity, since he knows Ash would only reject it and violently throw it back into his face, but he holds this careful tenderness in his heart for the right moments when he needs it.

Now, it seems, he needs it.

It started simple enough. Ash is staying over, sleeping on the couch (after so much insisting) while Shorter remains in his bed. There’s a quiet knock in the middle of the night before he could fall asleep, and when this door opens, Ash is just… _standing_ there. With something on his mind. Reluctant.

He whispers something at first, and Shorter has to ask him to repeat it. He doesn’t. Shorter asks him to say it again, and even still Ash is silent. He does not speak anything into existence until Shorter asks him to repeat one final time.

“Can I kiss you?”

This doesn’t process at first. There was a buffering time in his brain where the words didn’t quite register through the mind until they do – and then they click, all at once, taking this pining boy entirely by the storm.

Shorter can’t deny that he dreams of Ash. He would be lying if he said he never imagined the taste of his lips, the texture, careful like champagne, delicate like the act of flying. He can’t help himself from feeling, from hoping, from wondering, from imagining every single instance where their lips could lock and intertwine. He always pictured the softness across his cheeks, the hitches in his breath – every single ounce of Ash he wanted to drink for himself, but now he’s scared.

He’s scared of hurting him. He’s scared of messing this up. He’s scared of becoming the very monster Ash used to describe.

“What’s bothering you, Ash?” Shorter has to navigate his best friend carefully. He has to wade through every word as if one misstep will result in the death of a landmine.

Ash, by this point, has crawled into the bed with him. He’s working the courage to scoot up, to bring his face closer, but he can’t seem to make it happen. This upsets him, but he’s grateful. Shorter wouldn’t know what to do otherwise.

“I just need one,” is all he says. Shorter can’t bring himself to carry it out.

Finally, in a desperate, careful decline Ash is pulling his face in, letting his back fall against the mattress as their lips lock. Shorter _spirals_. His lips are on fire and his touch simmers when Ash traces his fingers up his neck and rests them behind his ears. His eyes are hungry. His mind is exploding thousands and thousands of miles away.

Then he stops. Then Ash pries his face back and stares at him carefully in the eyes for a moment. A lump catches in his throat, then he sobs. The tears come from his core and they heave with his chest as he weeps into the night.

Shorter presses his forehead against Ash’s and he’s patient. He’s content. He waits. He reassures him that everything’s okay. He comforts him over and over that there was nothing to worry about and he shouldn’t force himself into something like this. He shouldn’t have to. He won’t have to. He’ll have to refuse.

Then Ash tells him something. A simple few words that hammer into the quiet night and burn into his soul hotter than a thousand suns.

“I really wanna kiss you, man.” He sobs. “ _Why does it hurt to kiss you?”_

_I know you never bend, even in the strongest wind. I really wished to every god that you were innocent._

Things were different in February. He pretends not to notice it, but after a while Shorter can’t help but not recognize the new man standing within Ash’s eyes. Occasionally, he sees pieces of Aslan, but for the most part, that little boy is gone. Things were different when he came back to New York. Things didn’t quite fit the same at home.

At first he didn’t notice this, but he’s started to notice the little things that would add up. His laughter was softer, more reserved and his voice fell overall quiet. His eyes aren’t so wide – the hope and life that used to fill them to the brim is gone. As if it was burned and turned to ash.

Now suddenly this name that he chose – it makes sense. He was burned. He fell apart at the seams and was ripped to shreds like he’s a meal on a dinner plate. He was burned. Now all that remains is Ash.

Shorter has no idea about this Blanca guy that Ash only mentioned once. He has no clue what happened during training, what he learned, what they made him do, but he does know this, and he knows this too clear: Aslan is gone. He was killed with a girl in his arms and then he left, coming back as a different man. A different _boy._

He was just a child. He was just a fucking child, and it boils Shorter’s blood to see this child being groomed into a monster. It kills him to watch his best friend – this boy that he adores – drift away and watch as he evolves into the devil himself.

It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.

But that’s the tragedy about Ash’s life for everybody involved in it: nothing ever was.

_I'm happy and I'm proud that I can still call you my friend. I hope you read the letters and the magazines I send._

Sometimes, things are normal. Sometimes, things aren’t so bad.

Shorter tries to remind himself that he doesn’t belong with Ash. That Ash doesn’t belong with him. He makes a constant effort to put his feelings away and to stop dreaming so hard for this boy, that it’ll never happen, that it’ll never work, and that Ash deserves to escape and live with someone so much better.

So he sleeps around. He tries to involve himself with different girls he meets and he talks to Ash about him. He hurts him to do it. He hopes it doesn’t hurt them both, because Ash doesn’t deserve to suffer. Shorter deserves to suffer, and thankfully Ash shows no indication of suffering.

If anything, he encourages it.

Shorter’s talking to him about some girl he met last week at Warner’s and about how he wants to try and meet up with her again if he can. He has her number. He has her fucking Instagram. It’s just a matter of working up the courage to ask her out again.

For a moment they’re like any other kid, bouncing ideas off each other about how to approach the situation, about advice regarding help and general procedure, about what they want to do.

“Maybe I should take her out to eat,” Shorter had commented offhandedly, wondering why on earth he can’t just work up the courage to talk to Ash himself about this. Why can’t things be different? Why can’t they work out alright?

“That sounds fun.” Ash says, not looking up from his phone. “Any place in particular you had in mind?”

Shorter shrugs. “Someplace fancy.”

“So like, Johnny Carino’s?” Ash asks.

Immediately, Shorter roars into laughter, sparking attention from Ash now and holding onto that attention. “What?” He scoffs.

“Fucking Johnny Carino’s? Of all places? You think _Johnny Carino’s_ is fancy?” Shorter cackles.

“Shut _up_!” Ash yells, loud and indignant. “I don’t fucking go on dates and pay attention to that shit, how would I know?”

Shorter shakes his head, reduced now into a fit of uninterrupted giggling. Sometimes moments aren’t torture. Sometimes things are fine. Sometimes Ash thinks Johnny Carino’s is a fancy restaurant. Sometimes they’re just kids.

_You've got your head up but I don't have my hopes high._

The scariest part about this new Ash has to be his slow but alarmingly quick content with murder.

It always used to bother him. It always used to keep him up and anxious at night. The very thought of killing someone reminded him of this incident when he was eight, and he doesn’t even know what that incident is. He just knows it haunts him. He just knows he avoids death in every way.

Now there’s no avoidance. Now he doesn’t hesitate to shoot.

Every time he had to draw his gun he would hesitate, he would falter, he would shake. Now the bullet is fired before he finishes the blink in his eyes. Now there is no waiting for the kill.

Every time he had to take a life (the very few he had taken), he would lie awake until the early hours of morning completely scarred by the experience. Now he sleeps soundly. Now he doesn’t even flinch.

Now it doesn’t affect him. Now it doesn’t hurt.

Shorter has been scared of Ash before, many times, in fact – but nothing, nothing at all, has ever scared him like this. What _happened_ to him with his trainer? What did he have to do? What was so profoundly awful and undeniably terrible that he does not cry anymore?

Instead, he stares at Death in the face, and he taunts. He mocks him, wishing for him to be next. Instead, he does not care. He does not hesitate.

Why does this hurt so bad?

_I know that you're a good man._

Shorter shouldn’t feel possessive over Ash. He doesn’t have the right to. Ash doesn’t belong to him, and he can’t help this. But he also can’t help the twang of jealousy he feels at the very thought of him with someone else, especially when he comes home one day to dozens of hickeys all across his neck and chest.

Shorter doesn’t ask him about it, but Ash looks relieved. He doesn’t understand why but then Ash starts to talk about it – he’s always been a little too good at reading people.

“Golzine doesn’t like it when I’m marked up,” he says. “It means I’m out of business until my skin is clear.”

The relief suddenly is evident, now, and this hurts him worse. Suddenly he realises why Ash told him that he always asks his clients to leave marks across his body. Suddenly he realises why he asks Shorter to do the same to him.

He hates himself for wanting Ash to himself. He knows that he’s not supposed feel jealous since he doesn’t have him, but Shorter can’t help it anymore. He can’t hold back those thoughts that creep into his mind about how he wants to cut off every hand that dares to try and touch Ash, that he wants to wrap this boy up in his arms and hold him still only for himself.

He knows he doesn’t possess that power. He knows he doesn’t have the right. But he wants to. He wants to more than anything. But he can’t have it, and he’ll have to just die with it. What’s the good in that? What’s the point in any of that anymore?

It doesn’t matter. It _shouldn’t_ matter.

But it does.

_And that's what brings a tear to my eye._

Shorter is completely relieved to say he wasn’t the one that suggested sleeping with Ash.

Ash was the one that brought it up and had even asked for it. Nothing had happened prior to then, there was nothing relevant in their conversation; they were just there, in the apartment, not even paying attention to each other on the bed when Ash decides to suggest if he and Shorter can have sex.

“Where did this come from?”

Ash glances up at him. “Are you grossed out?”

Shorter instantly shakes his head. He’s the farthest thing from grossed out. “No, I’m just surprised. This came from nowhere.”

“It came from me.”

He’s ecstatic. He’s ready, but he knows that there has to have been some catch in the in-between that he’s not being told about. Something isn’t sitting right. “Come on, Ash. You know what I mean.”

Ash knows what he means.

He can’t take advantage of this boy. He knows he can’t just immediately do what he’s asked, he knows he has to ask about it first. He knows things have to be clear and he can’t just assume the best nor the worst. As much as it pains him to wait, he has to make sure. “Do you really want to have sex or do you like the idea of us having sex?”

“A bit of both, actually,” Ash says. “Can we try it?”

A bit of both. Now he’s _asking_ for it to happen, directly and openly, as if he were asking to go get some lunch. What’s happened with Ash? What’s prompted this thought? Shorter’s starting to be a little too optimistic. What if his feelings aren’t unrequited? What if Ash feels the same way?

Fucking play it cool, man. Play it cool.

“If you want to,” Shorter says, calmly. “Only if you want to.”

Ash nods. “I want to.”

“You want to.”

“I want to.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay cool.”

Nobody moves first. Nobody says anything either, but that doesn’t mean the air isn’t without heavy thoughts. It’s precisely because of Shorter’s hesitations that causes Ash to trust him with his body. Until finally, Ash has to break the silence.

“Are you going to do something, man?”

Shorter swallows hard. “I was waiting on you.”

“I’ve slept with plenty of people before. I can handle anything,” he states it so calmly, like it’s a description in his biography. “I want you to lead it.”

Shorter does not want to fucking lead it. He doesn’t know anything about Ash and what he likes and what can potentially _trigger_ him. He doesn’t know what’s going on well enough to follow Ash’s trust like that – but he asked, and he wants to, so it wouldn’t hurt to try?

It hurt to try.

It more than hurt to try. It was absolutely shattering. Ash was able to keep up and seemed calm and well put together at first but a couple minutes in he starts shaking. Shorter asked him if he wanted to stop, and Ash begged him to continue. Reluctantly, he does, but then Ash started crying.

He forced them both to stop right then.

The first thing Shorter does is help Ash get dressed into something light and the first thing Ash does is to curl in on himself to feel small – as if he could be tucked away into nowhere and everything will be fine.

They have their silence, while Ash has his cries.

“Ash,” Shorter calls, finally.

Ash doesn’t look back, but he knows that he has the boy’s attention.

“I can’t do this, Ash.”

_I love you too much, man_ , he wants to say, but he swallows instead. “Sex is supposed to be fun. You didn’t look like you were enjoying any of it.”

There’s a moment where neither of them move. Neither of them speak, but then finally, Shorter feels the pressure in the bed change. There’s shifting, and then the next thing he knows, Shorter feels a pair of arms carefully embrace him from behind his back, Ash’s forehead buried into the back of his neck.

Ash does not say anything from that moment onward, but his crying makes sense of it all alone.

_I'm like, oh—_

Shorter was not at all a religious man. If anything, Ash was more religious than he is, but there was always something striking about Ash that immediately would come to mind and his association with religion.

Angels.

Ash, very simply, was his angel. He was in love with an angel. Every single statue since he would find weeping beside freshly dug graves, guiding along universities or gazing from inside a church – all of them looked like Ash.

Ash would weep besides the freshly dug graves, guide university students, gaze from inside a church, everything in-between. If there was any sort of angel, Ash would immediately take his place.

Shorter wonders if this means anything. What _could_ it mean? Ash is an angel to him, and there’s nothing more than can be done to replace this imagery, except to have Ash start walking around with wings and a halo himself – but he doesn’t need that.

He doesn’t need any of that, because he’s beautiful. He’s beautiful as is, like an angel, and Shorter could never tell him that. He could never say that unless he wanted to watch his best friend completely spiral right in front of him. He saw how he got when other things would happen, he could only imagine the worse if it came from his own mouth this time. So he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t do it for Ash’s sake, and Ash probably has a feeling about this.

Even still, he appreciates this. He’ll keep quiet about it and he’ll wander around the graveyard some more, allowing Shorter the chance to admire him as an angel once again. Perhaps, one day, as this angel, he’ll learn to use his wings and he’ll do what he’s told – he’ll do what he’s born to do.

He’ll learn to fly.

_I hope you know you're not alone in that hell. And there ain't, no—_

Ash had tried to do this before, when he was eight years old. He, thankfully, had not remembered his gun that was still smoking in his hands. He did not think of it when he stepped into the perfect bathtub to scrub himself clean from the blood that splashed up on him.

It didn’t really click that his coach was dead yet, not until the tub was filled all the way.

It scared him. It scared him to no end. He was going to be hunted down and arrested for his crimes, and he was going to be known as the bad guy when he was just trying to make his assault stop. Nobody would understand him. Nobody would care to know.

He was just a slut, after all. This whole fucking town thinks that he did this to himself and nobody would hear him cry. He can’t let that happen. He can’t let them know what he did.

He looked down into the water, watching this tiny reflection of a child whose entire life was changed and now, he realises, that perhaps he should die.

Drowning is a good idea, but he noticed that no matter how many times he tried to hold his breath and stay submerged under the water in this tub, he’d find his way back up to gasp for air. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t get himself to drown. But then the dangerous part happened – then it all clicks in – the wall is hard, and he can drown peacefully when he’s asleep.

Ash never was able to fall asleep in the water, but he knows the body well enough to understand that a couple hits to the back of his head should suffice to knock him out. His head is small and fragile. All it would take is once or twice, right?

The first hit made him dizzy. His hands are clutching on either sides of the bathtub as he pants and tears well up in his eyes from the physical pain he was suddenly in. Hitting your head hurts, goddamn it, he just has to survive this a couple more times before he sinks down into the tub of water and drowns in perfect silence there.

The second hit didn’t hurt so bad – perhaps he’s grown numb – but he’s starting to see dark stars circling the edges of his vision. Maybe he didn’t swing his head backwards hard enough. Maybe with this next attempt, it’ll be enough to knock him out. Maybe it will finally kill him. Why does he suddenly feel so scared?

The third and final hit hurt like hell. His attempts to hold in his tears are long gone as he breaks into sobs and he starts to see trace amounts of blood leak into the water from the back of his head.

This _terrified_ him.

At this moment, tiny, tiny Aslan had realised he didn’t want to die. That he was scared to die. That he needed to get out and he needed to live and he needed to run away to somewhere safe. He found himself on the freezing tiles of the bathroom floor now, bleeding and sobbing from a sadness so deep he can’t quite place why he wants to live, now, but he does. He had to live. He had to prove this whole fucking town wrong and make it out alive.

He made it out alive, but tiny, tiny, Aslan was murdered very quickly by the age of thirteen.

Ash still has these moments sometimes, where he finds himself in a bathtub hitting his head. But after one hit or so he remembers why he stopped, and he remembers why he has to keep going.

But not this time.

This time Ash is convinced he is going to die, and he is going to stay dead. And there is nothing that he or anybody else can do about it now to stop him.

He decides not to hit his head against the bathroom walls – this is Shorter’s apartment, for god’s sake, have some class. It would be unspeakably rude to die in his fucking residence, especially after being so kind to take care of your sorry ass.

Ash walks to the building next door – another apartment complex of sorts, but this one won’t affect Shorter’s well-being where he lives. There won’t be any memories or connotations, just a body on the side of the road. Just like everybody else that has the permanent misfortune of dying in New York.

Shorter feels something is wrong. _Horribly_ wrong, and he doesn’t know what it is. He scans through the apartment, but there’s no sign of Ash. There’s no sign of him leaving to go anywhere, until finally, Shorter gets a text out of the blue.

**> >Do you remember the code for the roof lock at Anthony Apartments?**

**> >46227 why**

**> >That’s all.**

Something was wrong. They’ve only been on that roof once before, high as shit just to look up at the lack of stars and try to imagine a life elsewhere. He remembers what they talked about up there, then he remembers a comment, something that Shorter had dismissed way back then, but now it sends chills as his blood runs cold.

_“It’s a good place to die, isn’t it?”_

Quiet. Isolated. Serene. _It’s the perfect way to die,_ Ash had said.

That’s when Shorter realised. That’s when he knew.

_Ash!_

Immediately, Shorter’s running. He’s sprinting into Anthony with his mind racing through a million alternatives to what could happen. Ash. Rooftop. Jump. Dead. Ash. Anthony. Fall. Accident. Dead. Ash. Suicide. Dead. Ash. Quiet. Isolated. Serene. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

_“Ash!”_ Shorter screams once he reaches the stairs, now. thankfully, the elevator is down, so Ash couldn’t be too far up this building. Then again, he asked for the password – he’s already at the roof. _“Aslan!”_

Shorter had never run so fast in his life. His heart was racing and no words could describe just how _terrified_ the thought of losing Ash made him. He couldn’t lose Ash. He couldn’t lose his best friend. Not like that. Not like this.

Shorter’s hands are shaking and he has to hold himself still in order to input the five numbers on the keypad next to the door. He has to run. He has to hurry. He’s probably too late.

The door bursts open, and he finds Ash on the ledge, just _standing_ there. He looks back, eyes wide and Shorter immediately notices the mist coating his eyes. He’s scared. He’s hyping himself for it. He was literally seconds away from taking the leap.

“Ash, hey,” Shorter immediately dashes forward, but Ash instinctively places his other foot on the ledge. Only the wind holds him still, now, ruffling through his hair and his T-shirt as if they’re the only things that don’t have to follow the laws of gravity. Shorter freezes stiff, his voice trembling with his breath as he quickly tries to think of something that might get Ash to change his mind. “Don’t, please,” is all he can manage. “Please come here.”

Ash looks like he almost wants to. He swallows hard, his voice strikingly parallel to every other time he’s been terrified – calm, and on a tightrope. “Don’t.”

“Ash, please, I need you, man,” Shorter reaches his arm out and slowly takes a step forward. “Just take my hand,” he begs softly. “I’ll help you out. Whatever you need, I’m here. Just don’t die.”

He swallows hard, the mist forming into tears now that only carry with the wind. “Why?”

Shorter does not take one moment to hesitate. “Because you can make it out of here. Because you don’t have to die to escape.” He hesitates here, but he decides to speak it anyway, sincerely, even if it’s the last thing Ash is going to hear, he has to know. “Because I love you.”

In a split second in his eyes, Ash wants to step back onto the rooftop. But that split second is there and gone, and Ash, very clearly, has made up his mind. He closes his eyes, releasing the last of his tears, and he begins to lean back.

_No!_

Shorter doesn’t remember if he screams this or not, perhaps he had said Ash’s name, but he knows that he’s lunging forward, grasping onto the ladder pressed into the water tank, and then the other hand gripping onto Ash’s shirt. With all the strength he has left inside of him, he yanks back, forcing Ash to fly forward and stumble, tripping back onto the rooftop as his eyes snap open.

Shorter follows him and then holds him down, keeping him still as he tries to resist through all the screams and cries and the shouts of agony – he doesn’t allow it. He holds him still, an the holds him there, until finally, the rain comes after some time. The silence it harbours is nothing in comparison to the sobs it will bring. All that remains in the dark are two boys, fighting for survival on a rooftop, desperately learning that it’s alright to stay alive.

The rain grounds them to earth as they cry, and when Aslan looks up, what he finds through the teary eyed mist is a blackbird, resting carefully on the water tank before deciding it was time to fly.

This isn’t what she meant when she told him to fly – this isn’t what she was saying when in her dying words she called him a bird. This isn’t what Shorter means when he calls him an angel. This isn’t what was supposed to happen.

The rain comes as a reminder. The rain comes, even while they sob, to tell them that the sun will rise once again. That the worst will be over, that the best is yet to come. That it’s okay to live. That it’s okay to stay alive. He has to live. He has to endure. He has to survive.

Ash does not fear death, but he does not fight to die anymore.

_No one can change it, no one can do it better but yourself._

In a quiet moment, there is a collision of peace. In this quiet moment, there is no comfort holding hands with the solitude. There is just Ash, and there is just Shorter, linked arms in his bed, not saying anything at all.

They don’t want to talk about what just happened before. They don’t want to even think about it.

But Ash starts to wonder something, and the wonder starts as something small. The next thing he’s doing, he wants to know, and the only way to know is by looking at his friend’s eyes and peer into his entire soul.

Taking a deep breath, Ash finally pries his hands back, reaching them forward, gently grabbing the sunglasses from either side of Shorter’s face. His fingers pull back, taking off the sunglasses with them and exposing the rest of his face. Shorter’s eyes are still puffed and red, like the tears were still fresh on his cheeks.

They stare for just a minute, eyes locked in a shatteringly still silence until finally Ash has to look away. They never talk about it, but their eyes carried so much weight within them. So much pain.

There was no devil nor angel in Aslan’s eyes – at least not in the heartbeat of that moment. There was just a child, the child that perhaps, in another life, Shorter would have never fallen in love with.

_I was sixteen and we used to roll together. You told me back then that I was meant for something better. You know in our life nothing's gon' change but the weather. It seems it's been forever since we really stuck together._

These nights aren’t often. These nights happen, Shorter notices, when it’s because of something that happened to Ash earlier that day that ended up breaking his spirit into pieces. And it’s at this breaking point, when all that’s left of him is one wrong sentence – one wrong word – one wrong _anything,_ before he just explodes.

This time, it was a nonchalant comment about his sister.

She was complaining to him earlier about how he handles the restaurant, about how he keeps his room, about the danger he’s been getting into. It was understandable older sister behaviour, typical sibling banter, everything that happens in a normal family. Shorter wasn’t mad about it, but he was a bit annoyed.

He had made some comment about her being annoying sometimes and the two of them shared a chuckle. Ash had responded, saying something along the lines of “come on, man. She’s still your sister.”

“Yeah I know,” he laughs. “Sometimes I just wish she’d go away for a while.”

Something _snapped_ in Ash right then. Something Shorter had never seen out of him before. It was something that legitimately startled him, something that he didn’t want to ignite. Alcohol is flying in his face, scorching across his skin and barely missing his eyes thanks to his sunglasses.

Shorter scrambles up, letting out a cry. “The fuck, man?!”

Ash, still, is trying to keep it cool. He wipes his hand, which felt some backsplash from the drink he threw. “She’s your sister, you shouldn’t be saying shit like that.”

“So, what?” Shorter takes off his sunglasses and wipes at his face with the dry parts of his shirt, now visibly angry. “Am I not allowed to bitch every so often?”

“No, you’re not, actually,” Ash chuckles. “Because one day she actually will go away for a while and you’ll regret saying that.”

Shorter glares at him. “You’re not my Mom, asshole.”

“I don’t have to be,” he scoffs, flippantly.

“You can’t tell me what to fucking do!”

“I will tell you whatever I have to tell you!” Ash’s voice starts to mirror Shorter’s tone, with a little extra bite. “You shouldn’t say shit like that about your sister. She’s your _family._ ”

“Yeah, and what the fuck would _you_ know about family, Ash?”

The initial lack of reaction echoes out louder than a nuclear bomb. This beyond stuns them, and the realisation is starting to settle in with what was just set. The next thing Shorter feels is regret. The next thing Ash becomes is pure, burning _rage._

“Oh, _fuck you_ , Shorter!” Ash is screaming at the top of his lungs. “ _Fuck you!”_

Immediately, Shorter is trying to backtrack and step down from this, instantly hating what he said. “That wasn’t what I meant—”

“—Then what _did_ you mean, asshole?!” He has a point. What _did_ he mean? It was something awful and vulnerable and Shorter had to use it to his advantage for saying something painful, just to hurt him. He really has no explanation for this, and he really doesn’t know what else to say.

“I just—I didn’t—Ash, fuck, come _on,_ man—”

“—No!” Ash is throwing things at Shorter. Anything he can get his hands on. The cupholders. The glass bottles. The couch pillows. The couch. His fists. Anything that can be thrown in Shorter’s direction to make a point, he’s throwing it, and he’s _screaming._ “You have no fucking idea the shit I had to sacrifice, to _run away_ from!”

He’s pounding his fists into Shorter’s chest now, and he’s taking it, knowing he deserves every single one of these hits for that. He’s tensing himself, as each of these hits are starting to increase with force and velocity, and they’re starting to hurt worse than the last. But he knows this is probably nothing to the massive fucking bullet he probably shot through Ash’s chest.

“You have no fucking clue what I lost – _who_ I lost! _Fuck you,_ Shorter! Fuck you,” white hot tears begin to stream down the boy’s cheeks. “I hate you! I hate you! I fucking hate you so much!”

At this point, all Shorter can do is say something very simple, but very quietly. “I’m _sorry._ ”

_I’m so fucking sorry._

“ _I hate you!_ ” He screams, then he lets out a long, harrowing cry, until his throat is raw and then finally, he breaks. He crumbles down into sobs onto the floor and all Shorter can do is be there for him and wait.

Shorter carefully kneels down, and Ash throws in one more hit, and through his sobs he can only choke out “I hate you” one more time. Neither of them know who leans first, but the next thing he finds is a shared embrace, with the two of them back in bed. Ash doesn’t say anything else, he just weeps into his friend’s chest and the smell of alcohol permeates from the living room floor.

Shorter apologises again, and this time he knows that Ash has forgiven him. At some point they both are asleep, but Shorter ends up waking up in the heart of the night to find that the tears had stained Aslan’s cheeks. He wipes at it gently, and with nothing else, places a gentle kiss on the top of his forehead.

“I love you,” he had said. “I’m sorry.”

The other voice comes, raspy and quiet, echoing back a sentence that’s both threatening and reassuring. At the end of the night they know where they are, where they’ve been, and where they’ll go. At the end of the night they know they didn’t mean it, and that they need each other – and that everything is going to be okay. One way or another.

“Go to sleep, you stupid fucking pineapple head.”

_I'm living a crazy life, I wish that you could see it too. See a thousand people sing my song from me to you. Every time I sing it, you know I'm bleeding too._

It wasn’t hard for Shorter to find out Ash’s real name. He was the librarian while in juvie – he worked with files and information and had to more or less be the historian for all the inmates. Aslan Callenreese came up for him to file shortly after Ash had arrived.

As far as Ash knowing his real name, Ash never asked, so he never bothered to tell him. Yet, one day, he just finds out – through Nadia. They were talking about what it was like growing up above Chang Dai, but Shorter had said something to tease her, which caused her to scoff and continue the bickering in Cantonese.

“What’d you say?” Ash asks.

“I said, ‘Kevin, just wait until you’re asleep, I’ll shave the hair on your head that took you too long to grow,’” Nadia laughs.

Ash blinks. “Kevin?”

“Yeah,” Shorter sighs slightly with a giggle. “My name is Kevin.”

“Kevin,” Ash says.

“Yes, Kevin.”

“Your real name is Kevin.”

“Well it certainly wasn’t Shorter.”

“But it’s Kevin.”

“Yes, it’s Kevin.”

Ash sits, and he waits, before finally, he bursts into a fit of uncontrolled laughter.

“Kevin?” He snorts. “Of all the names you could have had, your parents named you fucking _Kevin?_ ”

“Shut up, man!” Shorter chuckles. “Fucking Aslan isn’t any better. My parents wanted me to blend in, not represent the church’s _fursona._ ”

“No, no, this isn’t about me or my mom being a hippie,” Ash laughs. “This is about your name being _Kevin._ ”

“Eat an ass, _Aslan_.”

Neither Nadia nor Shorter knew that this name reveal would start a playful war amongst the boys. Shorter would sometimes wake up to text messages with his face on other Kevin’s faces (after he got a text one morning with his face photoshopped onto a minion’s body, he blocked Ash for a week). Other times he would find Home Alone posters suddenly duct taped all around his room, and it would be weeks before he would notice a picture of Kevin Jonas replacing him in a family portrait above the mantle.

Actually, he wasn’t too mad about that one.

_Man, I accept you as you are. No, I don't need the truth._

When Shorter got his new bike, for a solid two weeks all the boys would do is ride around New York city on it. It’s never really spoken out loud, but these city rides bring a sort of peace here. They’ll just hop on and Shorter will drive around for hours – they’re living life during those times. They’re free.

Ash will just feel like he’s flying, closing his eyes and leaning his head back with an ear-to-ear grin, the joy is impossible to hide. Everything else in his life is hidden from him on these nights. He doesn’t have to think about anything and everything, he’s just there, on the backseat of his best friend’s bike, riding around until dawn.

It’s the closest to an escape from New York he’ll ever get.

_I got my head up, but I ain't got my hopes high._

This was it. This was where they were going to die.

They were outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned – everything else that just outlines that they are out of their fucking minds. They were supposed to get help, but help never game. Now here they are, in a fucking _axe bar_ surrounded by dozens of men while it’s just those two hiding behind the bar itself. There’s only two axes at their feet.

If they’re going to die, they’re going to die taking down as many people with them as they can. They both know this, and Shorter’s already sent a text goodbye to his sister just in case. They each grab an axe and take a look – their last look – at each other, before finally taking a deep breath and sharing a smile. They clink the metal of their axes together.

“See you in hell,” Ash says with a wink and a smirk. Time to go out laughing.

In that moment, Ash leaps up from the table and throws the axe at the closest man, running up behind him and using him as a human shield once the room opens fire like a massacre. Shorter uses this to his advantage, using the axe to cut off the top of a bottle of whiskey. He rips a piece of his shirt and dips it in the bottle, lighting the other end on fire. He tosses it back and curls in on himself when half the room and everyone within that side erupts into flames from the sudden explosion.

It’s just chaos at this point. There’s screaming he can’t place, and finally Shorter is jumping over the bar and using his axe kept on his person. The gunfire is split two sides, now – whoever isn’t roasting alive is shooting each other in the smoke and confusion. Soon, it gets too congested to see anything, and Ash decides now is a good time to run.

“Shorter!” he calls, and they’re running out of the door as fast as possible. Shorter grabs one of the metal chairs and drags it out with him, using it to hold the door closed behind them. The fresh air is like poison in their smoke ridden lungs, but they don’t give themselves the time to hack it out before running to Shorter’s motorcycle.

They take off faster than they could blink, and Shorter’s shouting something. Where are they going? Where is the best place to hide? It’s at this moment when the fire catches up to the rest of the alcohol in the bar – the whole building dies apart in an explosion they’d only see in a Michael Bay film – all right in front of their eyes.

They’re only on the road for a minute before they just have to start laughing hysterically. They made it. They fucking made it. With the skin on their backs left to hide, they’re alive. As they zip down the freeway Ash has him dip off into a little hole in the wall corner of New York. Apparently, there’s a Denny’s there they can hide in.

Shorter parks his bike tucked away besides the Denny’s parking lot, and the first thing they do when they walk inside is go into the bathroom to wash the smoke off their eyes and cool the adrenaline from the back of their necks.

Finally, through heavy breathing, Ash is the first to make a comment or move or anything of the sorts about what just happened – he lunges forward to Shorter and kisses him. The kiss is slow yet hungry but all the while relieved. When he pulls apart, he just rests his forehead against Shorter’s chest with his hands on his shoulders, carefully breathing.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispers finally.

All Shorter can do is nod and agree. “I thought we would be dead as we speak,” he laughs.

Ash takes a deep breath and then props himself back up, trying to bring his adrenaline down, now. “We should lay low for a little while.”

“Wanna stay and eat?”

Ash takes a few more breaths, before just shrugging and nodding. “Sure. I’m hungry. Why the hell not?”

The two of them walk out, being seated at a booth and they begin to look over the menu. Shorter picks the garlic peppercorn sirloin. Ash orders a stack of pancakes. By the time the server comes back the television is playing breaking news of a bar that caught fire and exploded. They’re blaming it on a barfight that nobody escaped from – there weren’t any suspects, and the two boys let out a sigh of relief.

“Geez, it’s getting crazier and crazier out there,” the waitress comments, refilling Ash’s orange juice. “You two best be careful.” She pauses, seeing their eyes, then she chuckles. “Long night?”

They share a look, and Ash breaks into a fit of snickers. Shorter just shakes his head and looks up her.

“Oh man,” is all he tells her simply. “You have no idea.”

_See, I know you're a good man. And it—it brings a tear to my eye._

Nothing good ever came from Ash being high. He would always get the munchies for the most bizarre things and he would lose every single braincell function that Shorter thought he would always have. Needless to say, it wasn’t common for Ash to get high.

He’d smoke with Shorter, sure, and Shorter would be high frequently – like now – but it’s not common where Ash would be high with him – like now.

“I’m hungry,” Ash complains.

Shorter takes the hint. Leaving Ash to his devices, he walks into the kitchen and makes them both lunch – a ham and cheese sandwich with some potato chips and mustard squished inside. Once he finished, he turns back around and calls for his friend.

“Ash.”

“Yo.”

He peeks around the corner. “I made you a sandwich.” This sounds like a question, like he’s surprised at himself.

It seems with this, Ash is surprised too. He glances around, then blinks twice. “You made me a sandwich?”

An awkward pause. “Yeah.”

A _terrifyingly_ awkward pause. “You made me a sandwich.” He’s absolutely surprised by this, like it was the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for him.

“Yeah, I—it’s—it’s right out here.” Shorter’s words are starting to slur. He takes note of his speech to know now is the time to stop smoking. “It’s ready to go.”

Ash takes about a minute to contemplate this. “Can I see?”

“Yeah, come on! Look,” Shorter gestures to the sandwich, encouraging him to get up and come see.

Ash hastily stands up and rushes over then looks at the sandwich. He had never seen something so glorious on a paper plate, it was like a present from an angel, from god himself. He starts to choke up, he’s sniffling. “You made that for me?”

Shorter sniffles too, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of his friend. “Yeah, it’s—that’s for you.”

“Can I take a bite?”

“Take a fucking bite, man.”

He takes a bite, now near tears. He has to gather the words before finally the most eloquent phrase he can muster together is very clearly: “That’s fucking delicious, dog.”

Shorter stumbles through his words, about ready to cry with the reaction. “I fucking love you dude. That’s for you.”

“I fucking love you, man.” Ash cries, now.

Shorter is crying, too. “I love _you_!”

Who would have thought, really? A simple hour with marijuana and a friend sandwich was all they needed to truly connect on how they feel.

_And I'm like, oh—_

Kissing started to become regular now. They’ve discussed this.

Sometimes, however, it gets a bit heated, and Shorter has to remember to not go too far for Ash’s sake. He knows how far they can go before Ash starts to become uneasy – and he has to navigate everything afterwards with extreme delicacy or else he’ll have to tame a lot more than a wild lynx.

These kisses were heated, as it happens sometimes before, and Shorter begins to drag his tongue up Ash’s neck. He feels his friend stiffen – he feels the tension starting to build.

To balance this, Shorter decides to be an absolute buffoon.

“Baby, you’re so yummy,” he says, with this god awful accent that neither of them can place. It’s just not a pleasant voice to hear.

Ash scoffs lightly, rummaging behind him and then pulling out the first thing he grabs as a potential weapon: a fork. “I don’t like that,” he says simply, and all Shorter can do is stop and stare.

His sweating is slowly becoming nervous, and all he manages to fumble out is “I respect that” before he stops.

Ash pulls back in a fit of giggles, but Shorter lets out a breath of relief to know that he didn’t step too far this time, that in this progress, he didn’t make Ash start screaming.

_I hope you know you're not alone in that hell. And there ain't, no—_

The difference between Shorter and Ash is that Shorter can walk away from this life anytime he wants to. Sure, it’d be a bit bumpy, but he’d manage to get out without losing his life or the life of his sister in this progress. Ash, on the other hand, is completely trapped.

It’s only natural that every once and a while, life becomes claustrophobic.

It was a simple start. Ash had come home from a particularly rough afternoon with a client – and then an even worse evening with Golzine. He’s going back and forth between Shorter’s room and the living room, trying to plan out his escape, and every time Shorter manages to catch a glance of him, he’s looking more and more frustrated with himself, like he keeps running into more roadblocks.

Then finally, it hits all at once.

He tries to keep it in, to keep his cool, that maybe if he just cried it out everything will be fine, but the heaviness that dampens his chest is telling him otherwise. The breathing, Aslan. Focus on the breathing.

He can’t.

A couple coughs escape in a futile effort to keep it all together, and Shorter’s carefully migrating to his side, now. He doesn’t step too close, because he knows that this can make it worse – for both Ash and himself.

“Ash, I need you to take it easy, man,” he says calmly, careful and collected, like an older brother.

“I can’t—” he wheezes through each breath as he feels his legs start to shake. He clutches onto the back of the chair to keep himself up. “—I—I’m—"

Shorter shakes his head and very delicately grabs a hold of Ash’s arms, guiding him down to his knees to let him rest. The floor is cold. That’s better than the heat – Ash never liked intense heat. By tugging his arms forward, he encourages them both to lay across the cool tile, hoping that will help. It does a little, but not enough.

It’s never enough, and all Shorter can do is watch from the side-lines. He has to be there, and he has to just do his best. But it’s not enough. The tears still weep from Aslan’s face. He still screams his throat raw and his chest still aches every time he can’t breathe. It’s not enough.

Shorter will never, ever be enough.

_No one can change it, no one can do it better but yourself._

“Of all the colours you could have picked up, I expected you to buy green to go with the whole pineapple aesthetic you’ve got going on.”

Shorter squints, then just rolls his eyes. “You’re the one that put that ‘aesthetic’ on me, I don’t claim it.”

“But _purple_?”

“Yeah, _purple_.” He mocks. “I like purple, so I’m dying it purple.”

Ash shakes his head. “No, _I’m_ the one dying it, since you don’t have the brains to do it yourself.”

Shorter brings a towel around his body, making sure there was no more significant water left in his hair from the shower earlier. There wasn’t any, so now there’s just lightly damp hair and a towel to prevent the dye from reaching his clothes. “Don’t have the brains my ass. I’m just lazy.”

“Finally some truth spoken from Kevin Almighty.”

He glares. “I’m gonna beat your ass.”

“Do whatever you have to do to feel better,” Ash scoffs. “I’m not gonna be the one with _purple hair_.”

“Don’t say it like you hate it.”

“It looks disgusting,” Ash laughs. He gets the dye out from the bag and pours it on his hands before starting to apply it to Shorter’s hair. “I’m just glad I’m not as stupid as you are most days.”

Shorter is quiet for just a moment, watching Ash guide the dye through his hair, fingers and all, before he very calmly states: “hey genius, you’re supposed to wear gloves.”

Ash looks back at his now purple hands, and suddenly remembers that he just stained his skin with a loud, aggravated sigh. It’s in that moment when their collective two brain cells linked, and it was, unfortunately, the colour purple.

_I reminisce to back then, when it was you and I. Smoking big fat blunts, drive-in movie night._

When people go to the drive in theatre, they’re only doing two things: they’re either smoking their brains out with weed, or they’re having sex.

The one time Shorter and Ash go to a drive in, they’re focused on the former, with only trace amounts of the latter. Of course, Shorter will only go as far as Ash is comfortable and willing to go with, but he isn’t going to push anything himself and he isn’t going to initiate anything at first.

Ash doesn’t take it further than making out, and he’s perfectly okay with that.

It’s like they’re in their own perfect movie, in their own perfect world. Each kiss lights Shorter on fire and he has never been happier making out with someone at the drive in. He wishes this story could never end. He wishes that they could kiss forever, drive away into the sunset, whatever cliché he could hope for in his perfect little movie.

But their movie was not one for happy endings.

_They tried to get you down, but you refused to die._

Injuries are a very common occurrence for the both of them, some nights they’ll come home it’ll be worse than others, and sometimes they’ll make it back without a scratch on them. But Shorter has never, _ever_ seen Ash come back looking so bad.

Ash opens the door, and just as Shorter turns his head to welcome him home and to tease about his lack of knocking, he immediately bolts upright. Ash collapses to the floor, like he used the last bit of strength he had to make it back to Shorter’s apartment alive.

“Holy shit, dude,” Shorter rushes over, closing the door and scooping him up, trying to analyse where he’s hurt. It’s better to try and find places that _aren’t_ marked up – any longer and this boy is dead. “Jesus Christ, what happened?”

Shorter rips off Ash’s shirt, noticing the shallow breathing and the complete lack of response coming from the boy. There’s a stab wound that’s oozing blood from his side – it missed all vital organs, thank god, so all Ash needs is some stitches and to take it easy. “We’re getting you to a hospital,” he says, starting to reach for his phone. But like a corpse in a horror movie, his arm is suddenly stop by the cold grasp of the body below.

“Don’t,” he exhales, painfully. “They’re waiting for me there.”

“Who’s they?”

He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have the strength to. Shorter curses under his breath, then he’s rushing to the bathroom to grab a white box he had stuffed with medical supplies underneath the sink. He fumbles through the box back at Ash’s side, and immediately stuffs something in his mouth for him to bite on. “Well, I’m not letting you die here.”

He douses water through the wound, then sterilises it, before finally, piercing the needle and thread through the bloodied skin.

It hurts. It more than hurts. And after much fighting and muffled screaming Ash had finally given up fighting to die – resorted to screaming into Shorter’s shoulder and gripping until blood drew from his nails until the stitching was complete. He pants still, nearly passing out from relief alone when the deed was done.

Shorter carefully lifts him up, carrying him to the bathroom and cleaning the rest of him there. He patches up the rest, dressing him in new clothes, and tucking him into sleep on his bed.

It’s a miracle that this boy survived this time, and Shorter makes sure to check on him every hour, leaving behind ibuprofen and water in case he wakes. During the in-between, he cleans the blood from the floor and the walls, throwing away the tattered clothes and makes a visit by the hospital.

Turns out “they” were the exact people Shorter can’t protect Ash from.

Arthur’s men wanted Ash dead more than anything else in the world. They would be willing to take any risk and they’d be able to get it done with ease. Shorter just swears under his breath, then rushes back home. Immediately, he checks Ash, then pulls up a chair to his side and sits there quietly, making sure he sleeps alright.

_I’m going to protect you, Ash,_ Shorter thinks. _No matter what I have to do._

He reaches over and grabs his hand, knowing that while holding this hand, everything is going to be okay. _They_ are going to be okay. He promises this much, despite the smell of blood seeping into the air.

_They tried to give you angel wings, but you refused to fly_

Only a year has passed since that damn summer. Ash had just turned sixteen now, and there isn’t a day that goes by where he doesn’t think about that summer, and that girl – murdered. Fourteen. She was just here for a moment. She wasn’t supposed to die.

Yet she did, right in his arms. And he had to throw away her body.

Only a year has passed since he watched her body plummet into the Hudson River. When he wakes up to this, it’s raining.

He can faintly hear windchimes echoing something to him, a tune of sorts that muffled the sound of the rain and woke him into this agony. Jesse Stayt was dead, and with her left Aslan Callenreese – yet the most fucked up thing about it all is that she doesn’t even feel dead. She just feels lost, asleep, somewhere far away without memory. She just feels _gone._ Not dead.

But she’s dead. She’s been dead for so long, yet it’s only been so little.

He’s already come to terms with the loss of her, but he shouldn’t have had to. It still hurts to picture the very thought of her, because all he can picture left is what’s left of her. She didn’t deserve to live like this. She didn’t deserve to die like that. It should have been him. It should have been him instead.

Ash finds himself floating over to the balcony, out in the rain and listening to the windchimes. In the corner there’s a birds nest, and a lone black bird lays there, unable to sleep to she instead stars into the emerald eyes of Aslan, a boy who died twelve perfect months ago. Why do those grey eyes look so familiar to him? Why do they look so tender, so unchanged?

The balcony door opens and Ash looks back, Shorter’s rubbing his eyes and putting his sunglasses on. “What are you doing, stupid?” He reaches for Ash and carefully pulls him inside. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

“Sorry,” Ash says quietly. “I didn’t feel cold.”

His skin is littered with goosebumps. His lips are tinged blue. He’s shivering. He’s beyond cold; freezing, actually. Perhaps he didn’t want to admit it, or perhaps he just didn’t feel it. Shorter learns that all feelings are gone for Ash every August 23rd. This numbness for him remains throughout the whole time, and it lingers behind even after the day is done, dwindling into completion by September 1st, but it’s never permanently gone.

Shorter checks the date, and he immediately hates it. He constantly wonders what a world would be like if Jesse was still here, if she wasn’t killed, if they found each other again. If they stayed in touch, if they were still friends, if they let her go alive. He wonders if Ash would finally have the chance to escape. He wonders if he would go – if he would be happy.

There’s no wondering about it. Of course he would. Jesse made him happy in ways Shorter never could, and he had to accept that – she was a beacon of hope for him before she was ripped away and disposed into the Hudson River.

And as always, Shorter wishes it were him instead.

_You'd rather stay in hell, and take your time in jail._

Ash, very simply, was fire. He was the embodiment of fire, his hair up in flames, every mark he’d touch would scorch away family names.

Never, ever, feed a fire more flame.

Yet Shorter never gave a shit about that. He would throw more logs in to burn, he would push the fire into oxygen to breathe and grow, he would voluntarily bring it to life with a match. He watched this flame, alive and unafraid, every day through any way – scream into life.

Normally children are told to put out flames. They’re told to stop breaking things and to stop screaming – but Shorter does not stop this in Ash. He will never stop it for Ash. Not even for a single second. He would ignite it, he would encourage it, he would scream right by his side – because he hurts. He hurts so much and he can’t escape it in any way, so he burns forward. He burns and sets the world on fire in hopes that one day people will notice. People will learn.

That child is _fire._

_They're only punishing a soul that you will never sell._

If a person were to calculate how many times they nearly run over someone with their car in New York, and if that calculation would be turned into currency – suddenly eight million people will be wealthier than all of Wall Street.

Nadia hates driving because of this, and Shorter doesn’t blame her. However, his license is with a bike, and not a car – and it’s raining. Nadia didn’t want to be on a bike in the rain, so she had to drive the car.

Everything is fine at first, until the headlights become clearly focused on someone in the middle of the road in this pouring rain, and Nadia has to screech to a stop to avoid hitting them. She screams something at him and lays down on her horn, and the guy doesn’t even flinch. He just glances over, and once Shorter’s eyes can come to focus he realises who it is at the end of the headlights.

It’s Ash.

“Ash?” Shorter’s mouth drops.

“What the hell is he doing?” Nadia gasps when she realises, and before her brother can say anything, she’s immediately stepping out of the car with an umbrella and walking over. “Ash,” is all Shorter can hear her call, before suddenly her voice is lost in the rain. He watches his sister walk over to his friend, telling something to him, and he just…stands there. He doesn’t move or say or do anything at all, until finally Nadia quickly starts to push him towards the back seat and helps him into the car.

When she hops back in to the front and closes down her umbrella, she rummages through the glove compartment and grabs half a dozen napkins from various fast food restaurants and a spare towel, before turning backwards and handing them to Ash. “Dry yourself up, you must be soaked.”

Shorter waits a minute as Nadia starts to drive again, this time a little slower to be more wry of traffic, and he glances up in the rear-view mirror. Ash didn’t even touch the dampening napkins in his hands. He looks backwards, about to ask what the matter is, before he catches a look in his eyes. It’s like there’s nobody there, or that nobody wants to be there – that he doesn’t want to be in his own head for a little while, and he can understand that much.

He just has to ride this out with him, and soon things will settle down back to normal.

“Nadia, pull over really quick,” Shorter asks. When she does, that’s when he unbuckles his seatbelt and literally climbs into the back seat, positioning himself next to Ash and taking the napkins into his own hands. At this point, he starts to carefully bring them up to Ash and pat at the rain himself.

Ash doesn’t even flinch.

“What’s up with him, Shorter?” Nadia asks as calmly as possible.

“I don’t know,” Shorter responds honestly. “But I’m sure he’ll tell me when he’s ready.”

Ash’s eyes soften, just for a moment.

When they pull up behind the apartment, Nadia walks around to help guide Ash in under her umbrella. He follows her inside and upstairs calmly, while Shorter remains on the ground level of Chang Dai, quickly pulling together some hot ABC soup and then bringing it upstairs.

By the time he’s up there, Nadia had already gotten him some hot chocolate and was drying his hair with a towel. When she sees Shorter, she leaves the responsibility to him before going downstairs to finish closing up Chang Dai and grab him a fresh, dry pair of clothes.

Shorter notices that he hasn’t touched the hot chocolate, but still, he slides over the soup with a spoon anyway. “I’m assuming you haven’t eaten today, and you’re freezing,” he says. “You don’t have to talk to me or say anything, but you do have to eat. Can you do that much for me?”

Ash stares down into the soup for a moment, before blinking and then reaching over slowly with a spoon and mechanically submerging it into the food and then bringing it to his lips. He doesn’t open his mouth for anything else, and that’s okay. Shorter didn’t ask anything else out of him other than to eat.

Nadia comes back upstairs with clothes that she had tossed in the dryer for just a couple minutes to warm them up some, and Shorter just gestures for her to set them on the arm of the couch. She does, then she walks over to give her brother a soft kiss on the cheek to tell him goodnight before leaving for her own apartment room across the hall.

When the soup is done, Shorter helps Ash get into the warm clothes, making sure he’s dried down enough not to catch a cold and then carefully guiding him into his bedroom. “Are you tired?” He asks. There’s a moment, before Ash finally, faintly, nods his head. “Okay,” he whispers simply, pulling off the covers and letting him crawl inside. He walks over to the other side and crawls in as well, but then he stops, he waits, he measures his friend’s eyes.

“Do you want me to leave the bed?” he asks cautiously. The reply is still subtle, but it’s quicker in timing. He shakes his head. Shorter just nods in response, whispering “okay” one last time.

Shorter lets him have this moment. He lets him wait, until finally, Ash curls in closer, almost asking to be held. So he’s held. They stay like this, warm beneath the blankets until finally falling asleep.

And in the morning, Ash speaks with a calm comfort in his voice, and everything is okay again.

_We both know that we owe nothing to each other._

After several more attempts of having sex with Shorter, Ash learns that Shorter is absolutely _awful_ with dirty talk. He can’t tell if it’s inexperience or if it’s just on purpose, but he’s bad. He’s worse than bad. He’s _I’m going to turn you off faster than I can turn you on_ levels of bad.

Needless to say, Ash stops worrying about him a few more times in. With Shorter he learns that sex is supposed to be full of laughter. He learns that it’s okay to be comfortable, that it’s okay to be vulnerable, as long as both parties are happy and willing.

Even if that results in Shorter saying “I’m gonna beat your meat so bad” before giving a handjob, it works out. It gets better. He starts to learn. He starts to laugh. And one night, after it’s all said and done, for a little bit of extra giggles, Shorter throws up a peace sign as they lie down next to each other.

Ash just carefully reaches up, then presses his finger to Shorter’s nose.

_But can you blame me for loving and missing my brother?_

Guilt. Guilt changes everything.

The thing is Ash never expected to feel guilty, and he knows Shorter would never want him to feel guilty over this, but he can’t help it, and he can’t stop it, because he can’t do anything to make it feel better.

He’s not stupid. He’s far from it. But he’s not normal. He’s not living a normal life, and he’s not going to ever live the life that he wants.

See, the problem here is simple: Shorter loves him. He knows this. He knows Shorter loves him and absolutely adores everything about him, and that’s where the problem lies. He knows Shorter wants to have him, he knows Shorter is holding himself back around him, and he knows the incredible lengths that Shorter is willing to go for him.

Very simply: he doesn’t feel the same way. And he feels _terrible_ for it.

It’s not that Ash doesn’t love him at all, he loves him back, but he loves Shorter differently. There is absolutely no way that he could love his friend back the same way that he receives in return. He feels terrible. He feels awful. He feels like the worst friend in the world even though he knows that everything is fine.

Ash knows Shorter knows that he doesn’t love reciprocate love with the same nuances of intimacy. Ash knows Shorter knows that he’s only ever going to see his best friend as just that: his best friend. Ash knows that Shorter is okay with this, but Ash knows that Shorter hurts from it.

And he hates it. He hates himself so much for it that he wants it to just leave him alone for good. He wishes that the world never had love at all, so maybe his friend wouldn’t be doomed to suffer this way, and that he wouldn’t have wake up every day in misery that he won’t ever find the kind of love he’s looking for.

No matter what Ash tries to do to alleviate it – kisses, sex, whatever he decides to try – he knows that Shorter can see right through it. He knows that Shorter holds up strict boundaries for _his_ sake, and he hates himself even worse.

For once, just once, Ash wishes he could be a better friend. He wishes that Shorter could move on or better yet, he wishes that he could feel love in the same way that love is given to him. However, the last time he loved someone that much, she was murdered, right in front of him, and she let out her last breath in his arms over a year ago.

Shorter isn’t Jesse. And Jesse isn’t Shorter. Yet the type of love he feels for each of them is clearly distinguishable, and the thing that he’s been chasing all this time is to keep the people in his life _permanently._ It seems anyone he had fallen in love with received the kiss of death, and perhaps that’s why he can’t bring himself to fall in love with Shorter. But does that mean he truly loves Shorter, after all? If he wants to protect him from Golzine so badly that he’s willing to build walls for barriers, then maybe he does love after all. But he feels nothing about it.

Nothing but guilt.

Nothing but guilt and the terrible, horrible fear that one day, someday, he’s going to lose his only friend, too.

_Oh, I hope you know you're not alone in that hell. And there ain't, no—_

If someone were to perform an autopsy on Ash and Shorter’s relationship they would find the strongest bond amongst any pair of friends. Shorter was calm, and Ash was flame – it was a perfect storm of sorts that built into the two of them always having each other’s backs and only each other’s backs. They have their strengths, they have their weaknesses, but overall, they’re still there for each other, in spite of everything, _to_ spite everything.

Perhaps, the greatest quality between them of all is the ever-flowering essence of childhood. Ash, when he’s around Shorter, suddenly feels calm. At ease. He gets to feel like a kid again, even if it’s just for a little while.

It doesn’t matter how, or where, or when, but when Ash is with Shorter, things just feel okay for the moment. They could be driving around on Shorter’s bike, high as a kite at the movie theatre, taking a break at home, literally anything. All they need is the company of each other, and the world feels peace, even if it’s for the rest of the day.

They’re the only friends that they need.

Perhaps that’s why Ash wants to love him so badly. Perhaps that’s why he can’t seem to do it. Perhaps that’s what Shorter _does_ love him even still. Perhaps that’s why he won’t ever let that go.

_No one can change it, no one can do it better but yourself. Oh—_

Shorter has come to appreciate the different ways Ash says his name.

There’s the first way, the soft and gentle breeze. This is the name with a tone of voice that loves him, that trusts him, that speaks with the quietness of a child. Shorter has to say this is his favourite one, because he knows that this way is only spoken by Aslan, and as much as the world thinks Aslan had died a long time ago, he’s still very much alive. He’s just a tiny flicker, a selection of a flame, and it’s this tender blue flame where Aslan is alive, and it’s from this boy where he hears the softness in his name.

Obviously, there’s the sexual. It comes in soft moans and gasps and shivers and everything in-between that Shorter _absolutely_ feels proud of creating. He tries not to think on this one too often, because he knows that it’s a dangerous path to bleed on. He knows this is something delicate and personal, and not something to be tampered with. So he plays it safe, he plays it cool, he takes it easy. He’s honoured enough to be in Ash’s presence, much less hear him say his name in this way.

The most heartbreaking way he’s heard was the vulnerable – this was the one that breaks out through rippling sobs and trembled breathing. This is the voice he wishes he would never have to hear his name, but he knows why it’s said. There’s a hint of desperation in there. A hint of agony. Shorter made a promise a long, long time ago: to make sure to never hear his name like this ever again.

Content sighs and playful banter is always welcomed when it comes to Shorter’s name. He knows it’s mostly neutral, but he also knows that it’s better than anything with pain. Shorter is content with hearing his name like this, just like how Ash is content saying it. 

And of course, there’s the loathing. It’s not common, but he knows just how angry Ash is when he hears his name in this sort of way. It’s not like he _wants_ to hear his name said like this, and he absolutely doesn’t like it, but he knows it exists. He’s heard it a few times, and it’s made its impact on him. He can’t do much else about it other than be better for Ash to prevent this tone again, and for the most part, he’s pretty successful at it.

The soft, the sexual, the vulnerable, the content, the loathing, and there’s a dozen more. Shorter doesn’t know why he paid such close attention to the details of these tones in his name, but he cherishes them. He cherishes them all. He just hopes to one day never hear his name screamed in terror, in a desperate plea of life-or-death, but he’s sure that it won’t come down to it one day.

It can’t.

_I hope you know you're not alone in that hell. And there ain't, no—_

There’s these moments – those quiet, quiet, moments, where neither Ash nor Shorter choose to say anything. In these moments – those tender, tender, moments, both of these boys sometimes just lay in bed together, staring into each other’s eyes, and they can truly feel the bond there. For these moments – those perfect, perfect, moments, sometimes they only feel one thing. They don’t even have to say it. They just know it, and it’s there.

_“You’re my best friend, man. I love you.”_

And that’s it. That’s all they need to know. That’s all they need to think. To think, in just a few moments they have to get out of bed and face the terrible world in which they’re living – but for now? Now is a moment of calm. A moment of peace. A moment of relief. A moment of pure serenity.

There was a tattoo that Shorter wanted them both to get, once they escape. It’s a term that Shorter has started to use about each other, and it wasn’t until very recently when Ash learned what it means.

死黨

They’re a pair of friends that will die with each other, that will stand by each other until their very last breath. It’s a bond tighter than any other friendship, and it’s exactly what they are. Even in death, they will stand by each other, and even in the afterlife, it seems, they will remain by their sides.

It will be written in black ink, etched into the delicate softness of skin just above the shoulder blade. Shorter will have it on the left side, and Ash will have it on the right – so when they link arms in any way, it will form a pair of wings that will lift their souls higher than the heavens above the sky.

Perhaps then, Ash will finally remember to fly.

_No one can change it. No one can do it better but yourself._


End file.
